1 . (Read the following interview excerpt between a journalist (J) and a professor (P). Complete the interview except by using the questions in the box that best fits the professor’s answer. There are two extra questions that you may not need. )

Interview: is evolution predictable?

4th August 2017   
If we were to replay the tape of life here on Earth from scratch, would we as humans still evolve? That’s a key question new research in the area of experimental evolution is seeking to address. We speak to Jonathan Losos, professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and curator of herpetology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, ahead of publication of his first book Improbable Destinies: How Predictable is Evolution?
J:       1    
P:   In short, it’s new evidence. Stephen Jay Gould wrote in his seminal and highly influential book Wonderful Life that we were not fated to evolve the way we did; that if you could replay the tape of life and let evolution proceed from an early point, then the end result would not at all be the same. But Gould’s argument was based entirely on logic and thought experiments. Thirty years later, we have lots of data on how deterministic evolution is, how subject it is to the whims and flukes of history. We are finally in a position to re-assess whether Gould was right or not.
J:       2    
P:   The answer to that is somewhere in the middle, as with many debates. To some extent, if you put the same species in the same environment, experiencing the same selective pressures, they often do evolve in the same way. This is particularly common when you’re dealing with closely related species, and there’s a reason for that. Closely related species have the same genes and the same biology, so it’s very easy for them to evolve in the same way. Different species, however, have different ways of reacting to a given evolutionary pressure. So evolution is probably more deterministic than Gould was willing to recognize, but it’s not quite as pervasive as some others have argued. Where is the convergent duck-billed platypus, for example? If evolution is so convergent, why don’t we have this animal outside Australia? Evolution is often not predictable; it’s contingent on previous circumstances.
J:       3    
P:   I can’t really answer that question. What’s changed recently is our knowledge about how many Earth-like planets there may be, even within our own Milky Way galaxy. With the realization that these planets exist, many people think the likelihood that life has evolved on some of them is pretty high. We haven’t detected that yet, but it may be that we just haven’t figured out how to detect it yet.
J:       4    
P:   I have no evidence to argue that one way or the other. I do think, however, that if there are millions of moons and planets out there, the likelihood seems very high. If life has evolved, my expectation is that it would not look at all like life on Earth. Who knows what sort of chemical biology it might be based on, but the building blocks of life there would almost certainly be different to some extent from here on Earth. Even here on Earth, unrelated species react in different ways. My prediction would be that life evolved on other planets will not be at all recognisable with what we have here.
J:       5    
P:   Yes, I think we are. Our conception of life is biased by our own experience, but look at octopuses. We know they’re fairly intelligent, but their biology is completely different from ours. I’m not saying they have human-level intelligence, but they have a lot going on in their brains and they’re nothing like us.

A．Given the time evolution takes, is that why – so far as we know – Earth is the only planet on which evolution has made progress?

B．Does the evolutionary convergence of DNA make it vital for intelligent life?

C．What are the next steps in your research?

D．Why have you decided to revisit convergent evolution?

E．Could evolution be happening elsewhere in the Universe and can you tell from your research what it might look like?

F．Are we constrained in our concept of intelligent life by our own large-brained, humanoid existence?

G．Is evolution a fixed programme, steered only by environment and accidents?

2 . Green fingers

It never occurred to me when I was little that gardens were anything less than glamorous places. Granddad’s garden was on the bank of a river and sloped gently down towards the water. You couldn’t reach the river but you could hear the sound of the water and the birds that sang in the trees above. I imagined that all gardens were like this—a place of escape, peace and solitude. Granddad’s plot was nothing out of the ordinary when it came to features. He had nothing as grand as a greenhouse, unlike some of his neighbors. Not that they had proper “bought” greenhouses. Theirs were made from old window frames. Patches of plastic would be tacked in place where a carelessly wielded spade had smashed a pane of glass.

At home, his son, my father, could be quiet and withdrawn. I wouldn’t want to make him sound humorless. He wasn’t. Silly things would amuse him. He had phrases that he liked to use, “It’s immaterial to me” being one of them. “I don’t mind” would have done just as well but he liked the word “immaterial.” I realize that, deep down, he was probably disappointed that he hadn’t made more of his life. He left school without qualifications and became apprenticed to a plumber. Plumbing was not something he was passionate about. It was just what he did. He was never particularly ambitious, though there was a moment when he and Mum thought of emigrating to Canada, but it came to nothing. Where he came into his own was around the house. He had an “eye for the job.” Be it bookshelves or a cupboard—what he could achieve was astonishing.

My parents moved house only once in their entire married life. But my mother made up for this lack of daring when it came to furniture. You would just get used to the shape of one chair when another appeared, but the most dramatic change of all was the arrival of a piano. I always wanted to like it but it did its best to intimate me. The only thing I did like about it were the two brass candlesticks that jutted out from the front. “They’re too posh,” my mother said and they disappeared one day while I was at school. There was never any mention of my being allowed to play it. Instead lessons were booked for my sister. When I asked my mother in later life why I wasn’t given the opportunity, her reply was brief: “You’d never have practiced.”

Of the three options, moors, woods or river—the river was the one that usually got my vote. On a stretch of the river I was allowed to disappear with my imagination into another world. With a fishing net over my shoulder I could set off in sandals that were last year’s model, with the fronts cut out to accommodate toes that were now right to the end. I’d walk along the river bank looking for a suitable spot where I could take off the painful sandals and leave them with my picnic while I ventured out, tentatively, peering through the water for any fish that I could scoop up with the net and take home. After the first disastrous attempts to keep them alive in the back yard, they were tipped back into the water.

I wanted to leave school as soon as possible but that seemed an unlikely prospect until one day my father announced, “They’ve got a vacancy for an apprentice gardener in the Parks Department. I thought you might be interested.” In one brief moment Dad had gone against his better judgment. He might still have preferred it if I became a carpenter. But I like to feel that somewhere inside him was a feeling that things might just turn out for the best. Maybe I’m deceiving myself, but I prefer to believe that in his heart, although he hated gardening himself, he’d watched me doing it for long enough and noticed my unfailing passion for all things that grew and flowered and fruited.

1. When the writer describes his granddad’s garden, he is _______________.

A．proud that his granddad was such a good gardener

B．embarrassed that the garden was not as good as others nearby

C．indignant that items in the garden were often damaged

D．positive about the time he spent in the garden

2. What is the writer’s attitude to his father in the second paragraph?

A．He was regretful that his father had not achieved more.

B．He was irritated that his father used words he didn’t understand.

C．He was sympathetic to the reasons why his father behaved as he did.

D．He was grateful that his father had not taken the family to Canada.

3. What does the writer mean by the underlined phrase “came into his own”?

A．was able to do something by himself

B．was able to show how talented he was

C．was able to continue his day job

D．was able to forget his failure

4. What was the writer’s first reaction to the piano?

A．He was surprised when it suddenly appeared.

B．He was pleased at seeing it in the living room.

C．He was angry that only his sister would have piano lessons.

D．He was proud that his mother had listened to his advice.

5. The writer’s description of his fishing trips illustrates ____________.

A．how much free time he was given

B．how beautiful the river was

C．how good a fisherman he was

D．how carefree his childhood was

6. What is the main idea of the last paragraph?

A．His father did not want his son to be a gardener.

B．His father was tired of disagreeing with his son.

C．His father had been impressed by his son’s love of gardening.

D．His father had been trying to find a job his son would enjoy.

3 . Many high achievers credit music with opening up the pathways to creative thinking. And their _______ suggest that music training sharpens other qualities, such as collaboration, the ability to listen, and a way of thinking that weaves together _______.

Will your school music program turn your kid into a Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft (guitar)? Or a Woody Allen (clarinet)? _______. These are singular achievers. But the way these and other visionaries process music is _______. As is the way many of them _______ music’s lessons of focus and discipline to new ways of thinking and communicating—even problem solving.

Look carefully and you’ll find musicians at the top of almost any _______. Woody Allen performs weekly with a jazz band. The television broadcaster Paula Zahn (cello) and the NBC chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd (French horn) attended college on music scholarships. Microsoft’s Mr. Allen has a rock band. Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, played saxophone in high school. Steven Spielberg is a clarinetist and son of a pianist. The former World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn has played cello at Carnegie Hall.

“It’s not a(n) _______,” says Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Mr. Greenspan was a professional clarinet and saxophone player. “I can tell you as a statistician, the probability that that is mere chance is _______.” The cautious former Fed chief adds, “That’s all that you can judge about the facts. The crucial question is: why does that _______ exist?”

Paul Allen offers an answer. He says music “reinforces your confidence in the ability to ________.” Mr. Allen began playing the violin at age seven and switched to the guitar as a teenager. Even in the early days of Microsoft, he would pick up his guitar at the end of marathon days of programming. The music was the emotional analog to his ________, with each channeling a different type of creative impulse. ________, there is “something pushing you to ________ what currently exists and express yourself in a new way,” he says.

The veteran advertising executive Steve Hayden ________ his background as a cellist for his most famous work, the Apple “1984” commercial depicting rebellion against a dictator. He adds that his cello performance background helps him work ________: “Ensemble playing trains you, quite literally, to play well with others, to know when to solo and when to follow.”

1.

A．rules

B．reports

C．commitments

D．experiences

2.

A．people

B．ideas

C．enemies

D．arguments

3.

A．Probably not

B．You bet

C．It depends

D．Very likely

4.

A．odd

B．threatening

C．intriguing

D．shocking

5.

A．reduce

B．apply

C．switch

D．leave

6.

A．branch

B．culture

C．industry

D．country

7.

A．problem

B．evidence

C．coincidence

D．clue

8.

A．extremely low

B．unusually high

C．incredibly mysterious

D．highly relevant

9.

A．example

B．connection

C．solution

D．demand

10.

A．listen

B．create

C．program

D．dominate

11.

A．project

B．pastime

C．addiction

D．day job

12.

A．In both

B．On the other hand

C．By contrast

D．For example

13.

A．go over

B．look beyond

C．stick with

D．give in to

14.

A．credits

B．describes

C．criticizes

D．regards

15.

A．independently

B．intuitively

C．collaboratively

D．skillfully